This first bill allows the state of California to regulate and oversee all 3D prints in the name of public safety.
“Uhoh, can’t 3d print a gun. Guess I’ll just go to Walmart.”
More like “Guess I’ll just print this file labeled ‘hyper realistic movie prop lazer blaster’.”
Me when I walk 30 feet to the east and buy a gun under the table with no paperwork for less than the cost of a 3d printer
Jokes aside it’s to prevent having one that’s not registered
Under the proposal, printers would have to evaluate STL files, CAD files, or other geometric code using a firearm blueprint detection algorithm and block files flagged as capable of producing a firearm or illegal firearm parts, including conversion devices.
California’s Department of Justice, or another relevant state agency, would have until January 1, 2028, to publish performance standards for detection algorithms and software control processes.
This is the problem when lawmakers write technical bills without speaking to technical people. They’re going to publish standards for evaluating if your gcode is a firearm or firearm part? THAT’S FUCKING IMPOSSIBLE
BANNED
It’s not even that, building a firearm…is legal…this shit going after printers makes no sense at all, it’s fucking legal to print firearm parts.
I bet they end up using a fucking llm
Yes that’s probably how you would do this. Get a bunch of data of gcode of 3d printed gun parts and not-gun parts, for different slicers and printers. Then train some transformer as a classifier. Based on how good object recognition is, i would say its possible that you would get reasonably good accuracy and precision. And because you are scanning for code the architecture will likely be similar to an llm.
Then five minutes later, someone figures out how to make a 3d printable gun that bypasses the gun detector on the 3d printer. It’s not like you’re printing a whole gun; you’re printing parts, most of which look nothing like a gun. How hard would it be to design an algorithm that takes a gun part cad file and then adds a bunch of extraneous pieces to it that can be easily removed? Just keep adding extra crap until the system no longer detects it as a gun part.
Yes that would probably work. There could be some essential features of weapon parts that an algorithm might still be able to learn, and a printer could also keep track of previously printed parts for the classification. I think its unlikely that there are essential features of gun parts that are specific to gun parts so there would probably be a lot of false positives.
Yeah I’m thinking of an automated version of greebling. Except you design the extraneous bits so that they’re only attached to the intended print like print supports - something in a non-critical location, easily torn away.
I think a problem might be that the “easily broken away” might be a feature that an algorithm might be able to learn.
The controller in my printer that was manufactured at mininum cost can’t “analyze a part using an algorithm”. Do they think it has any decent computational power?
That’s the point. This is just a foot in the door to block your access to print things that might be trademarked copyrighted or affiliated with your corporate overlords.
And a foot in the door to start blocking your right to repair your own things.
Guaranteed.
Yes they have no idea what they are asking. Stl is just gcode how do you look for a gun out of coordinates.
Kinda, render a few images from the gcode, use a CV algorithm to identify the object.
On device it’ll be slow or expensive.
Define gun is a lot harder then you think. For example
or
I know, but they want a solution implemented, that’s a solution.
Ah yes. Another passive asshole that codes this type of thing and goes home without even batting an eye because I got mine before someone else did.
Big assumptions
Its just either completly ineffective, or effectively bans 3d printing. Then you are going to run into enforcement, and legal challenges. Oh and even if all that is done guns will still be present at a ratio above 1:1 in the states.
Anyone who has a highschool level of metal shop can also make a firearm, 3d printing is not even well suited for the task. Just look at Japan, one of if not the most restricted nation for firearms, and someone shot a leader with a homemade firearm.
Your faith in this mystery algorithm is stronger than mine. Here’s a diagram of the parts in an AR-15:
So we need an algorithm that renders the gcode I’m printing, then compares it to… something?
Look, I was just saying, it could be done, train it on current real and 3d printable gun parts and there, you did your best to create algorithmic gun filtering. I wasn’t saying that it would be good or accurate.
The algos don’t need to deny any or every part of a gun, but the most critical part must not be printable and it’ll already be effective.
I’m neither very experienced with firearms nor printing, maybe such a thing doesn’t exist for a gun, but I suspect there’s a few very important pieces that need to be printed a certain way or the firearm falls apart or is at least a lot less useful.
All that said, I’m generally against such limiting mechanism in any printer or compiler. Try close sourcing all compilers so they can’t create malware? Forget it.
I’m neither very experienced with firearms nor printing
Unfortunately that’s the crux of the issue. The people who have written and signed this bill aren’t either - and they weren’t as big of a person as you to recognize that.
At the end of the day, 3D printing gcode is telling your printer to spit out a shape. And you simply cannot ban shapes. Am I printing a firing pin or a part for my shoe rack? There’s no way to tell. Any politician that’s telling you there is is either ignorant or lying to you.
And you simply cannot ban shapes.
They have banned numbers, I mean hell go around shouting 13-12 and see how long it takes for you to get a fine/get arrested. I wouldn’t say that banning shapes is far off
3D printed gun designs these days don’t even use plastic for most of the critical parts. The goal is to print a frame, which you can then assemble into a full gun using durable off-the-shelf parts that are available from any hardware store. No need to 3D print a bolt (and deal with all of the manufacturing issues that entails) when you can just buy a bolt for 5¢ at any hardware store. Especially when that bolt will be more precise and durable than the plastic bolt you would have printed.
It’s the old carpentry idea that if you can’t get precision by hand, you can borrow it from something else. Need to cut a bunch of identical boards, with precision in 64ths of an inch? A #8-32 bolt will have 32 threads per inch. So a half turn on the bolt will advance or retract the bolt 1/64 inches, accurate down to whatever the bolt manufacturer’s clearance is. Probably a few thousands of an inch. Build a jig to hold your boards at the saw, and thread a bolt into the jig to act as the board stop. Now you can turn the bolt to adjust your clearance as needed, and you’ll be accurate down to 1/64 by only making half turns each time.
And 3D printed guns use the same concept. You don’t print a plastic barrel that will explode after two or three shots, you just leave a void for a store-bought pipe to fit into the frame. The pipe will be more durable and more precise than anything you could feasibly print. You don’t need to 3D print a firing pin that will blunt/shatter/jam after a few uses, when you can just use a steel nail that will have better durability and avoid jamming. And all of the parts you need can be bought at a hardware store without raising any suspicions. That’s part of what makes this so dumb. They’re not just requiring printers to scan for potential gun parts. They would require printers to scan for anything that could potentially hold or manipulate gun parts. And that is a much broader spectrum than simply scanning for the shapes of the parts directly.
They would require printers to scan for anything that could potentially hold or manipulate gun parts.
It’s worth explicitly noting that this effectively bans 3D printing entirely. The whole point of this law is to be able to charge owners of 3D printers with a crime. Real useful if they find out some anti-zionist protestor has a 3d printer in their garage. Can’t get ya on the free speech thing, but they can get you on the owning a non-compliant 3d printer thing.
For the rightoids out there, replace anti-zionist protest with anti-abortion protest. Or any other speech the government doesn’t like. This exists for the sole purpose of punishing innocent people.
That makes a lot of sense. If the print just holds the critical parts, forget it.
Printer: “not a hot dog”
Theres countless gcode use in the world, much of it is offline
Doesn’t matter. Has nothing to do with online.
You can run OpenCV on an RPi, it’s just super slow, and you could probably use a cheap GPU chip to do it faster. You store the pretrained model on the device.
You may even get away with an asic designed for the model, though with that one I’m talking out my ass.
That would makes printers more expensive and my guess is that they’ll prefer to force online connectivity
100%
Supporters say the measure tackles the problem before a downloadable file becomes an untraceable weapon. Everytown for Gun Safety says recoveries of 3D-printed crime guns across 20 cities have risen nearly 1,000% over the past five years, and argues that cheaper, more capable printers are already being used in illegal ghost gun operations.
Ooooh, that’s two large red flags for me (disregarding the litany of red flags the concept in general has). Every town being involved makes me question the data on its face, given the number of times I saw gang violence near a school out of school hours listed as a school shooting in their database, as does a large percentage increase with no hard numbers. If they recovered 1 gun last year and 11 this year, that’s a 1000% increase, but the percentage sounds so much worse than the real number.
Proposal: All elected officials must install Corruption Blocking Software that scans all their communications, financial records and assets, and uses advanced Corruption Pattern Matching Algorithms to determine if they might be taking bribes from industry lobbyists, pumping up their own investments, or secretly serving special interest groups, or if they’re just general nutjobs.
Why stop at elected officials any company has to do this. If they can infringe our rights why not make sure everyone has their rights taken away.
Everytown for Gun Safety says recoveries of 3D-printed crime guns across 20 cities have risen nearly 1,000% over the past five years,
So… They found a total of ten 3d printed guns in the last 5 years?
325 are 3D out of 350,000 guns found in CA in connection to a crime in 2024, according to random assholes on reddit.
This is a pretty dumb thing to pass legislation on considering it’s still VERY easy to buy a gun even in CA, another method of getting a gun isn’t making it easier in any real sense.
Now to be totally fair, 325 is 325 more than 0, which would be the ideal number of 3d printed guns used in crime… But also, how many of those 3d printed gun users had access to a different gun and simply opted for the 3d printed one? I get the feeling it was somewhere around 325 of them
This is all ignoring the fact that I’m using a very liberal definition of the phrase “3d printed gun.” I doubt anyone is using Songbirds for armed robberies lmao
3d printing isnt shit except for ease of use. I can make a 12 gage slam fire shotgun in a couple hours with maybe $100 on a home depot or Lowes gift card. As a machinist and welder, I can make a whole lot more than that.
On the one hand, its moronic to think that limiting 3D printing will in any way affect ease of access to firearms. On the other hand, literally anything making it harder for people to kill or harm each other is probably for the best in the long run.
A comedian I watched a while back had a bit about if the government really wanted to stop gun violence, they’d put a massive tax on ready made ammunition. You really gotta hate a bitch to spend $5k on a bullet to kill them. Obviously this doesnt take into account making your own ammo, but the point stands.
Add to that the fact that some gun parts are not printable and have to be made out of metal. Printing an entire firearm on a $500 3D printer is possible but that gun will be good enough for 1 bullet, and probably will hurt shooter at that.
Also, if inmates can make a handgun out of whatever they have access at prison - 3d printing is the afterthought. Some parts can be bought in a department store, the others can be ordered online as a replacement parts. If someone really wants to make a gun themselves, 3D printing ban wont stop them.
and to be clear to naive: you can’t actually 3D print a gun. You can make parts that can be smithed together with metal parts to make a working gun. There are some fully plastic designs, but no way would I shoot those twice.
with metal parts to make a working gun.
That’s always convention “forgotten” in all these breathless “think of the children” arguments.
You can’t fully 3-d print a working gun that isn’t as dangerous to the user as it is to the target.
You can find more magnet fishing.
Why use AI generated bullshit images like this techspot…
Sad to see AI, but honestly that image made me laugh, because it seems to come straight from the mind of the author of this bill.
Hah true, it is sufficiently ridiculous and stupid.
Is it AI generated though? The quality looks pretty good to me
The text is fine, but thats not a printer ive ever seen, i dont think its a real product, looks like a promotional render for some kind of small form factor printer with a built in dry chamber. Cool idea, but its not a real product, or its incredibly low volume.
Edit: also the “gun” is bigger than the print bed, which cant happen. And the gun is huge, way bigger than actual gun unless that printer is tiny tiny. It might be a 3d render but 100% not done by someone who understands how any of this tech works. AI would be a strong candidate for all the mistakes
, i dont think its a real product,
Cubify 3D
only 140mm buildplate, what? is this a gun for ants?!
I posted above, but it is a real product:
3D Systems Cube 2 3D Printer:
Neat, if i wasnt trying to avoid bed slingers might have picked one up
That appears to be the 3D Systems Cube 2 3D Printer:
I would love to see a politician try to fire a gun printed like that. Genuinely, it would be fun to see it explode in their hands
Can’t regulate the parts as they are used in many many many devices. So as far as I’m concerned this is worthless. I can build a fucking 3d printer from an old VCR and a hot glue gun.
You can, but 90% 3D printer buyers can’t, and that’s a good enough amount of people to spy on.
90%?
More like 99.999%
Including op.
There’s a difference between building a pile of crap and actually building something that works effectively. It’s a difficult hardware and software problem.
https://www.reprap.org/wiki/RepRap
The work has all been done long time ago.
The designs and software are all open source at this point.
exactly but that’s also good fuel to defeat the bill.
- Buy a kit.
- Buy a mechanical kit and an electronics package.
- Build from scratch
- Buy out of state
- Buy an open source machine and flash the firmware
- Buy your fucking gun in an alley (way easier, and maybe cheaper.)
- Design and distribute stls that have parts that may be interpreted by whatever brain dead software is going to watch out for files, and print in two batches, say, something that may look like a lower, and then an upper, for a a nerf gun, for example, to glut the system.
The list goes on…
It’s also pretty much a technical impossibility if you know anything about 3D printers.
3D printers can’t read CAD. They aren’t fed STLs or any other kind of 3D model. They’re fed G-Code, which contains no geometrical details. It’s a list of instructions saying “turn these 4 motors this speed this for this amount of time while heating that part to this temperature and turning this other motor this speed, then heat this part while tunlrning that motor that fast…” with hundreds or thousands of instructions, and then new instructions for the next layer.
In order to print a model, you first have to run it through a program called a slicer that generates that G-code by slicing it into layers with instructions for how to move, heat and cool the nozzle, build plate, and chamber, feed the filament, etc.
The printers just follow those instructions with minimal on-board processing and zero information regarding the final model’s structure.
But the most popular brand right now forces server interaction.
Only if you want to use cloud printing. I print on my A1 using Orca all the time.
Those instructions can be translated into the final product. It isn’t hard when you know what each instruction produces…
It’s pretty hard when you have to also account for extra printing to conceal the item. You can render a result, but if it just looks like a box with convenient breakaway pieces that snap to leave behind just the part, you’ll need some more complex work than simple pattern matching. And even then each piece of a gun isn’t a really a unique shape only used for firearms.
Assuming there is extra printing. That wastes resources and your iterative designs are also captured in sequence, which reveals the direction of your efforts.
Speaking as someone that knows basically nothing about 3d printing (though has done similar with CNC), do you think it’d be possible to reverse-engineer the code in some way? I’m thinking something like a simulated 3d printer 🤷♀️
there are many open sourced software applications than can produce G-Code for any printer. All of it can be done offline.
This is America, wouldn’t it be easier just to buy a gun? I get that 3D printers can make ghost guns that aren’t traceable but how many crimes have occurred where that is the murder weapon?
One CEO. More important than every dead schoolchild.
They asked about crimes.
Agreed. Every time I’ve looked into printing one I look at the process and just buy it. All the ghost guns I’ve made were from hollowed-out 80% lowers. And one time a hardware store slamfire shotgun.
I fully support one’s right to print a gat, but it sure ain’t for me.
Thats the neat part: they can make weapons the same way I can theoretically make a bomb from enriched uranium in my backyard.
Why are they so scared of us that they must enslave us?
Because we could fuck up their shit pretty easily with just the slightest mass motivation.
So…maybe let’s get some of that, before we can’t.
Okay, I’ll meet you there! I’m sure everyone else will also show up after seeing this exchange. Let’s gooooooo! This is iiiiiit!
We need to organize a group that can show tangible benefits to its members for joining.
And retain member engagement when it’s inevitably attacked and it costs members something to continue.
I suppose my old Prusa just jumped a bit in value.
You can use a 3d printer to build a 3d printer. When they figure that out, will they try to stop those parts from being printed too?
Who did they consult on this, and did that person or persons purposely lead them astray, or were the consultants equally ignorant?
Hell, with modern stepper motors and extruded aluminum box frame, you don’t even need a 3D printer to build a 3D printer. It would certainly make it easier, but it’s not required. You could manufacture an entire 3D printer using off-the-shelf parts and a raspberry pi (or maybe even an Arduino) to control the motors. It wouldn’t be elegant, and it would require a lot of calibration… But it would be doable if someone were so inclined.
Repraps were controlled with Arduino Megas for a very long time. Up until the MK4 series, Prusa’s Rambo or Einsy boards still ran on the ATMEGA2560 microcontroller.
All of this work is done.
My first 3d printer is a RepRap running marlin firmware… They couldn’t make me make that 3d printer compliant.
[edit]
I wonder if the microcenter locations in CA are suddenly going to have empty shelves where the 3d printers used to be.Mine is next to a harbor freight, and I have a 25% off to HF. Don’t tempt me OP
I might print some guns purely out of spite.
In Minecraft.
Time to stop buying American printers.
